It's All Politics

12:55 pm

Thu December 8, 2011

Professor Gingrich And The Lessons (And Lecture Notes) Of History

Newt Gingrich used these lecture notes and similar pamphlets as part of the 1994 college course that became central to a later House ethics investigation.

Newt Gingrich once called himself "the most seriously professorial politician since Woodrow Wilson."

But that was 1995, and the "Contract with America" co-author had just helped to propel Republicans into power in the House for the first time in 40 years, and Gingrich himself into the speaker's role. Even the rarely modest Gingrich had reason to gloat.

Just two years later, of course, he had become the first speaker ever punished by the House for ethics violations, and the end was in sight for both his leadership and congressional career.

Gingrich's troubles stemmed in part from his professorial work, a 1994 college course he had taught in Georgia.

NPR's Peter Overby this morning notes that Gingrich "admitted he had unintentionally but materially misled the [House ethics] committee and had failed to keep the college course insulated from partisan politics."

Overby, who covered Gingrich in the 1990s, saved several class lecture notes from Gingrich's Reinhardt College course on "Renewing American Civilization."

Gingrich's academic credentials have become the subject of renewed interest as his presidential campaign has surged. On Sunday, the The New York Times' Frank Bruni looked at the irony of the popularity of a self-described historian (who earned a Ph.D. from Tulane) in a Republican Party "supposedly hostile to intellectuals and intellectualism."

And if Gingrich did become president? He'd be the first to hold a Ph.D. in the White House since ... Woodrow Wilson. (That trivia courtesy of Adam Hochschild in a New York Times op-ed).

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